A sustainable inventory model with controllable carbon emissions in green-warehouse farms

Abstract

Global warming has become a sensitive issue, and many countries are trying to control CO2 emissions by investing in many projects and promoting green industrial practices. This study proposes a sustainable price-reliant demand inventory model with controllable carbon emissions to reduce the CO2 emissions from farm warehousing activity. This study extends previous research that has proposed a sustainable inventory system with greenhouse facilities by controlling carbon emissions through green investment. This study involves an investment in energy-efficient green technology in a two-warehouse inventory system to curb carbon emissions during the transportation of products from the owned to the rented warehouse and also to the final customers. Two warehouses are frequently used in practice to avoid stock-out situations and make the business more profitable. Case 1 represents the model with allowable shortages, and Case 2 represents the model without shortages. Pricing strategies and a hybrid payment scheme are applied throughout this study to make the business more profitable as well as to entice new customers. The retailer has to prepay some portion of the purchasing cost, with the payment scheme requiring multiple installments. Non-instantaneous deterioration is considered in this study to show the lifetime of product freshness in the presence of a constant backorder. A nonlinear model is proposed, and a solution algorithm is suggested. A real case study is introduced, which provides an illustration of the proposed model. The examples are solved and are followed by a sensitivity analysis that reveals the validity of the model, and conclusions are presented.